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Comment by elevatortrim | Hacker News Reader

I think the beauty of this quote is working more than its content.

Most people, even when they do not sit down and think about it, follow one of the two career paths:

- Some people will actively pursue the next logical progression (senior, lead/manager, head/vp, exec).

- Some will happily stay in their position unless the next one is offered to them.

Being deliberate will always work better compared to being random, but it is not like all people who succeed in their careers deliberately planned to get where they are.

I would even guess that for the vast majority of successful careers, competency and luck played a much bigger role than being deliberate about it.

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> would even guess that for the vast majority of successful careers, competency and luck played a much bigger role than being deliberate about it.

I think this is true. I had a while where my career was doing really well constant steps up, I was learning, getting promoted, was working on great projects and problems that were engaging and led to easy promotions. Then I got a new manager and it was downhill. Then I got a new job and the problems are insignificant and there's no room for growth of any kind. If my latest job was earlier in my career my career would be very different.

I never really had a plan for a career but I never settled. I borderline almost did at my last job as it paid enough and I loved the people like family but the move from that job landed me in the most interesting and well paying job I've had yet. Luck totally played a part in most of my jumps and the ones I thought were good were often bad and the ones I wasn't interested in ended up being the most interesting.

I just can’t understand people whose life goal is like to be a CTO by some date; I have never tried for a promotion since I first shifted into a job where I was paid to make software. Due to the random walk of promotion rules (and most likely the good work of bosses that believed in me), I have been promoted enough that I had to put thought leader into my linked in, but I do believe just making sure whatever you are working on is useful and successful to other people is enough worry; if you are skilled in software and thinking, the other things will work them selves out.

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